Valletta 20 Apr (ANA) - A rescue operation has saved the lives of 134 sub-Saharan migrants during the Easter weekend as they were about to fall off their tiny rubber dinghy in the middle of the Mediterranean. Correspondents report three days of suffering, death and hope. From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, the dead were counted and the shivering were covered, all in a day's work for the crew of the Phoenix, one of the rescue ships trying to make the mediterranean less of a cemetery. From the Phoenix, rescuers use Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs) to reach rubber dinghies or rickety wooden boats packed with migrants, usually from sub-Saharan Africa. In one episode, on Good Friday, a group of migrants were issued with life jackets and lined up on the edge of their dinghy, ready to transfer to an RHIB. Suddenly one of them slipped and fell into the sea, taking 10 others with him. Some two people went under, but rescuers jumped in and saved both. (ANA)

FA/ANA/20 April 2017----